I’m a writer/artist inspired by a lifetime of reading graphic novels. A visual artist at heart with a BFA in Industrial Design I have worked over a decade in conceptual thinking for research and development in the manufacturing sector. I love the experimentation that breaks the boring norms of industry standards. I wanted to use my talent, experience, and passion to create a sci-fi graphic novel, Bear Serum, and break the medium norms. I wrote and drew it to satiate my own wild ideas in the sci-fi category to push the medium further.
This is my favorite mainstream graphic novel of the Caped Crusader. Mostly because of the art by Tim Sale. This graphic novel has a special place for me because it is my first experience with Tim’s art. Tim represents style, emotion, and grit through his visuals. I am an art-first comic book fan. I got into writing later as a young adult but art is what drives me to pursue graphic novels. I flip through graphic novels without reading a word first. If it is visually appealing throughout the story, I go back and read the whole story.
Dark Victory is technically Jeph Loeb and Tim’s second Batman novel after but Dark Victory is more polished, feels cooler and the story is smoother.
I suggest that you read this one on a Saturday night.
It is early in Batman's crimefighting career, when James Gordon, Harvey
Dent, and the vigilante himself were all just beginning their roles as Gotham's
protectors.Once a town controlled by organized crime, Gotham City suddenly finds
itself being run by lawless freaks, such as Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, and the
Joker. Witnessing his city's dark evolution, the Dark Knight completes his
transformation into the city's greatest defender. He faces multiple threats,
including the seeming return of a serial killer called Holiday. Batman's
previous investigation of Holiday's killings revealed that more than one person
was responsible for the murders. So the question…
I have always been intrigued by the Roaring 20s, and specifically in how the lives of women truly began to change during this time. My grandmother loved to boast about how she had been a flapper as a young woman. Her sister-in-law was one of the first female attorneys in Detroit in the mid-20s. The era brought about opportunities and freedoms previously unknown to women. Many women suddenly had options, both in terms of careers and lifestyles. Goals of first wave feminists were beginning to be reached. The research I did for my book furthered my understanding of society at the time, particularly in America.
Vera Abramowitz, ‘Dollface,’ was a flapper who got caught up with the mob.
Her two mobster lovers cause her life to take a downward spiral. Read how she puts the broken pieces of her life back together. Realistic and gritty, we see the flip side of the frivolous life of flappers seen in the movies.
America in the 1920s was a country alive with the wild fun of jazz, speakeasies, and a new kind of woman—the flapper.
Vera Abramowitz is determined to leave her gritty childhood behind and live a more exciting life, one that her mother never dreamed of. Bobbing her hair and showing her knees, the lipsticked beauty dazzles, doing the Charleston in nightclubs and earning the nickname “Dollface.”
As the ultimate flapper, Vera captures the attention of two high rollers, a handsome nightclub owner and a sexy gambler. On their arms, she gains entrée into a world filled with bootleg bourbon, wailing…
I’m a window-seat person. If I’m on a trip, I want to see much
more than the device propelling me forward. In crime books, the vehicle is
always the crime, but I want that felonious little engine to also propel me
through realms where I become more explorer than passenger, where I’ve entered marvelous
and unexpected worlds that become characters in themselves. It almost doesn’t
matter what that world is, whether it’s 19th-century Chicago
architecture, bitcoin cartels or octopus linguistics. As long as it’s well-researched and rendered with depth, precision, and passion, your ticket to a
crime gets you at least two books, or even genres, for one!
My favorite true crime books—and most of my favorite non-fiction books—tend to be character-driven, read like novels, and tell a larger story through the protagonist’s lens. I found myself getting lost in George Jung’s journey as a drug smuggler and loving that sometimes it felt almost incidental that he was at the criminal nexus of a massive cultural phenomenon taking place.
I also love it when books and protagonists create conflicting emotional reactions. Jung’s likeability, coupled with the destructiveness of the business he helped pioneer, rings true to life; I found myself rooting for him at times, then despising him, and always wondering where the chips would fall in this improbable journey.
BLOW is the unlikely story of George Jung's roller coaster ride from middle-class high school football hero to the heart of Pable Escobar's Medellin cartel-- the largest importer of the United States cocaine supply in the 1980s. Jung's early business of flying marijuana into the United States from the mountains of Mexico took a dramatic turn when he met Carlos Lehder, a young Colombian car thief with connections to the then newly born cocaine operation in his native land. Together they created a new model for selling cocaine, turning a drug used primarily by the entertainment elite into a massive…
I’m of the opinion that good writers draw from life experience. Here are the broad strokes: a Boy Scout reporter at the 1964 national Jamboree, a drummer in country, rock, and jazz bands, a SCUBA instructor, a commercial real estate developer, a drug addict, and an inmate in the penal system. I’ve been reading and writing almost from day one. Most of my early work is crap. I’ve learned the hard way what makes a story worth telling and how best to tell it. Read my recommendations and decide for yourself. After all, it’s your opinion that counts.
I love things that go punch in the dark. This book is another fine example of breaking the mold. Some would label it a “crime novel,” some “noir,” others “thriller,” and others still “hardboiled.” Bottomline, this is one kickass novel.
I had to put down one of King's long-winded tales and a Koontz self-absorbed Oddity because I didn't want to stop reading this book. I'll get back to those guys later. This pick is a fast dirt bike in a sandstorm—way more fun.
Mr. Swierczynski (try to type that 3 times fast) crafts one hell of a novel. His bizarre twists are the stuff of nose bleeds, all done with gritty characters in a fast-paced style that grabs you by the eyeballs and won't let go. He initially reminded me of one of my all-time dark writing faves, Charlie Huston. Unique beyond comparison, The Wheelman checks all the boxes for…
Meet Lennon, a mute Irish getaway driver who has fallen in with the wrong heist team on the wrong day at the wrong bank. Betrayed, his money stolen and his battered carcass left for dead, Lennon is on a one-way mission to find out who is responsible--and to get back his loot. But the robbery has sent a violent ripple effect through the streets of Philadelphia. And now a dirty cop, the Russian and Italian mobs, the mayor's hired gun, and a keyboard player in a college rock band maneuver for position as this adrenaline-fueled novel twists and turns its…
I wrote on the mob early in my career as a newspaper reporter, investigating organized crime’s infiltration of politics, unions, and the toxic-waste industry in New Jersey in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, then covering some of the major mob trials in New York during the 1980s (starting with the case depicted in the movie Donnie Brasco). In more recent years, I’ve returned to the subject in two books: The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia and An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians. I like work that is careful, specific, and presented in a smoothly written narrative.
This is another book that cuts through the hype, helping to define the often sensationalized connections between mafiosi in Italy and the United States.
Historian Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian, brings a perspective often missing in American books on the Mafia. His meticulous research knocks down the idea that the American Mafia was ever some giant “alien conspiracy” with Sicilian overlords, but it does examine whatever interconnections and parallels exist in real life between the two Mafias.
Much like the Critchley book, this is for those who want the facts, facts, facts. And Italian experts have a lot to contribute to the story of the American Mafia.
A realistic understanding of the mafia must avoid depictions both of a monolithic organization and of localized, isolated groups. Here, renowned historian Salvatore Lupo analyzes the mafia as a network of varied relationships and institutions, the result of a complex cultural and social encounter that was shaped by multiple, diverse environments.
I’m a filmmaker and writer who made a TV series about street gangs around the world with actor and presenter Ross Kemp. But it was one London street gang, the PDC, that particularly caught my attention. The newspaper reports were full of overblown headlines, terrifying statistics, and quotes from police forces. That’s when I decided to head down to the PDC’s “turf” in a small corner of south London because if you are going to try and tackle this crimewave it’s best to find out who is doing it and why. Right? I spoke to PDC gang members, their friends and families and the surprising truth behind the headlines is revealed in my book.
I live in London, one of the most developed and “civilised” cities in the world but I’ve always been fascinated by what lies beneath its respectable surface and what currents are agitating it from below. This is a startling and eye-opening tour of the UK’s rich criminal underbelly and the surprising and surreptitious ways crime groups can cheat the system. It’s also a shocking insight into the lengths to which criminal gangs are prepared to go to avoid being caught. I’ve not been able to look at my home city in the same way ever since.
From the bestselling author of GANGLAND BRITAIN and REEFER MEN.
Organised crime is one of Britain's biggest industries. The number of gangland murders, shootings and kidnappings, along with the levels of drug trafficking, people smuggling and money laundering, have all experienced phenomenal growth. Multi-million pound drug deals and vicious turf wars have spread out from the inner cities and now affect even the most rural communities. The day-to-day impact of organised crime on our lives has never been greater.
In GANGS, award-winning author Tony Thompson takes us on a gripping journey into the criminal underworld. From Triad human traffickers in…
I wrote on the mob early in my career as a newspaper reporter, investigating organized crime’s infiltration of politics, unions, and the toxic-waste industry in New Jersey in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, then covering some of the major mob trials in New York during the 1980s (starting with the case depicted in the movie Donnie Brasco). In more recent years, I’ve returned to the subject in two books: The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia and An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians. I like work that is careful, specific, and presented in a smoothly written narrative.
I usually find the informants more interesting to read about than the diehard gangsters because they’re the people in the middle, squeezed from all sides. This fluid account, by two of New York’s best reporters, is a personal favorite. It’s a smoothly told narrative that avoids romanticizing the mob.
A gripping, novelistic biography of the diminutive man behind the big mouth. Reminiscent of Wiseguy and Ice Man, this compelling biography from two prominent mob experts recounts the life and times of Alfonso Little Al D'Arco, the highest-ranking mobster to ever share Mafia secrets when he changed sides in 1991. Although top boss of the Luchese crime family, D'Arco decided to quit the mob after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt. His testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison and prompted others to make the same choice.
In college, I studied Literature with a capital L: those timeless classics the professors worship and revere. Then a woman in a used book store in Seattle handed me a copy of Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280 and said, "Read this." I was hooked. The pulp fiction of the 1950s is visceral and raw. Like Greek tragedy, it examines the darker drives of human nature--greed, lust, loneliness, anger--and their consequences. Pulp writers were paid by the word to crank out lurid thrills. But like Shakespeare writing for the groundlings, some of them just couldn't help going above and beyond. Their work remains in print because it hits on universal truths that still resonate today.
When news editor Earl Janoth murders his mistress, there's only one witness who can tie him to the crime scene. Janoth doesn't know who the witness is, but he knows everywhere the man went in the 24 hours before the murder, because the murder victim told him before he killed her.
Janoth is determined to find and silence him. He assigns reporter George Stroud to track the man down, not knowing that Stroud himself is the man he's looking for. Stroud is forced to assemble a team to hunt himself, knowing that when he's found, he'll be killed.
This is the best-plotted book I've ever read, both in concept and execution. Little details sprinkled through early chapters of the book keep coming back to have major significance as the noose tightens around Stroud.
George Stroud, executive editor at Crimeways magazine, is involved with the wrong woman - his boss's. When Janoth, the boss, kills her in an argument, he tries to pin the crime on a man seen outside her home just before the murder. He assigns his best investigative reporter - Stroud - to find the man. Trouble is, the man was Stroud himself ...An audacious and ironic novel of terror and high tension.
I’ve always loved a good crime drama/suspense thriller novel–the way they keep you glued to the pages, and you think you’ll just sit down for a quick couple of chapters before dinner, and the next thing you realize, it's 12am, and you’re on the last chapter. The depth of the character studies that you get with this genre is the other reason I enjoy it so much, there’s nothing worse than having main characters that are one dimensional and unreachable as a reader. I have always tried to create this kind of character depth and gripping narrative in my own books.
I really liked the way Puzo really nails the intricate plot with his straightforward writing style. He takes you through intricate events that jump around in time, keeping you hooked and on the edge of your seat.
The progression of the characters is another great bit. As a reader, you watch as Michael turns from a war hero with the potential to be a great guy into a ruthless mafia boss, almost as if it were destiny or repercussions for his father’s mistakes.
_________________________________ The classic novel that inspired 'the greatest crime film of all time'
Tyrant, blackmailer, racketeer, murderer - his influence reaches every level of American society. Meet Don Corleone, a friendly man, a just man, a reasonable man. The deadliest lord of the Cosa Nostra. The Godfather.
But no man can stay on top forever, not when he has enemies on both sides of the law. As the ageing Vito Corleone nears the end of a long life of crime, his sons must step up to manage the family business. Sonny Corleone is an old hand, while World War II…
Whether
I’m writing, reading, or watching a show, I enjoy action thrillers with
multilayered protagonists and emotional depth. Andrews and Wilson deliver both
entwined with a twisty, action-packed plot that takes the Dempsey so deep
undercover in Russia, even the members of his Task Force Ember team believe he
is dead. Organized crime, politics, and high, deadly stakes combined with
emotional angst and moral conflict packs a punch.
The world is more volatile, unpredictable, and dangerous than ever before. To stop the architect of this chaos, Dempsey is given the most dangerous tasking of his career … a mission only he can complete against an adversary he must face alone.
After Task Force Ember’s successful intervention in Ukraine, John Dempsey disappears without a trace—with no notice or explanation given to his teammates. Spotty intelligence eventually places him in Russia where he is rumored to have been captured by the Russian FSB and is now presumed dead. Mourning his loss, Ember is forced to pick up the pieces, restructure,…